Activiti Designer 5.9.1 released

[trademak]

Hi all,

I've just released a new version of the Activiti Designer (5.9.1).
This version was intended to be just a bug fix release but also includes:

- Pools and lanes support. A lot of people were asking for this so I'm happy to say that it's included now.
I'm also looking for feedback on how this support can be improved.
Be aware that if you add more than one pool to the diagram, Activiti will see these pools as separate processes.
- Added support for event gateways
- Added support for intermediate none throw event
- Bug fixes based on feedback on version 5.9.0

As always I welcome any feedback and let me hear about new features you would like to see added.

Best regards,

[oca]

What you are asking for is to add support to import an XSD and WSDL  and generate the message, interface definition etc out of it.
…
I don't see the relationship with a pool with this, can you explain what you mean with this?

You're right, my needs is really all about web services orchestration, and to me, web services are really tightly related to messages (and obviously "message flow" in a BPMN Diagramm), and messages flows connects activities between pools. that's why I would like to modelize web services calls using message flows and Pools.

I will start a proper "WebService modelisation" topic where I will explain my ideas in more details.
Cheers

Olivier

[gunnar1]

Hi all,

I've just released a new version of the Activiti Designer (5.9.1).
This version was intended to be just a bug fix release but also includes:

Since version 5.9.x the Designer is almost all unusable due to a severe problem:

• Create a new diagram using "New->Activiti Diagram"


• Add some elements


• Save and close the editor


• Open the diagram again by double clicking on the file
Result: the editor opens, for about 1 second i can view the diagram - afterwards the diagram has disappeared and I'm left with a blank empty editor screen.

This happens in about 95% of my work. No difference between existing old diagrams from previous 5.8.x releases and newly created ones.

Furthermore it looks like you haven't stored the position of flow names. From my side this is as well not a just nice to have…

Summary: low quality, poorly tested. Half baked graphics in alpha status. Frustrating. What a pity!

P.S.: Working with JDK6 and an up to date Eclipse Indigo on a 32bit Windows XP system
(the Windows XP is owned by my customer and I'm not allowed to use anything different).

[trademak]

Hi,

This is not a very friendly and constructive post.
Of course this has been tested, because that's the foundation of the editor.
It may be that this is some kind of lower level bug in Windows 32-bit Eclipse or Graphiti.
I'll test it on my Windows image to see if I can reproduce it.
The flow names position is not yet stored, right. You can add a JIRA for this.

[trademak]

@Gunnar, I just tested it on Windows 7, 64-bit and it worked just fine.
Maybe it's a Windows XP issue. Has anyone used the Activiti Designer 5.9.x on Windows XP?

[gunnar1]

Hi Tijs,

sorry for being destructive… To put it in a nutshell: The majority of users won't tell you. Especially new users might just silently turn away from the whole project. Relating to the Activiti Process Engine I'm acting on conviction - this is rock solid design and definitely feasible for production usage. But tooling and the whole development process is essential in a BPM project… From my point of view currently the Designer is the Achilles heel. And I know other users who will agree with that.

You guys have made a lot of progress when looking at the BPMN features. 
So I'm confident that the problems with Graphiti will be solved as well.

Regards
Gunnar

[trademak]

Hi Gunnar,

Absolutely, and I welcome any feedback you may have, but this post was just a little too bold for my liking.
But now let's try and solve this issue. I tested it on my windows 7 image and it works just fine.
I think I have a windows xp box somewhere, let me dig it up 😉

Best regards,

[gunnar1]

Tijs,

eventually you might have a look at the current Graphiti bugs - my Eclipse Installation History says that with the Designer 5.9.0 you started using Graphiti 0.9.0, latest Milestone release. Are you sure that 0.9.0 is already stable?

Regards
Gunnar

[ronald_van_kuij]

Are you sure that 0.9.0 is already stable?

Stable or not, it works for me…

Especially new users might just silently turn away from the whole project.

Or most do not have this problem…

(the Windows XP is owned by my customer and I'm not allowed to use anything different).

Are you SERIOUS??? You can use the latest Activiti, the latest Eclipse and a prehistoric Windows… Then I'd find a new customer… Seriously…

Support for XP ended July 2010… http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/help/end-support.

[oca]

Hello,

I also have some trouble with version 5.9.1
I was trying to do a diagramm to explain my idea about web service, but I was unable to produce that diagramm.
see image attached. (the diagramm is fine, then I save, close, reopen, and obtain that strange digramm with missing activities)

Here is something that produce that kind of blank screen blank (a whole blank screen, not exactly the same as the image attached which I can not reproduce every time…)

1) start a new diagramm
2) add a pool  (using the palette)
3) add another pool  (using the palette)
4) add a user activity to the first pool (using the palette)
5) add a user activity to the second pool (using the palette)
6) Save
7) Close
😎 reopen, and here the diagramm is whole blank

I'm using
Windows Vista (on a VMware image)
Eclipse JEE Indigo SR2 (a brand new install with only activti plugin on it)

Cheers

Olivier

[oca]

Here is some more info about the blank digramm produced using the sequence described in my previous post.

if I open it with an xml editor, we cas see that some ids are not unique.

<process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane1">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask1</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask1" name="User Task"></userTask>
  </process>
  <process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane2">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask2</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask2" name="User Task"></userTask>
  </process>

If I manually restore proper ids, the diagramm showup correctly.
Cheers

Olivier 

PS : Here is the whole file :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<definitions xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn" xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI" xmlnsmgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC" xmlnsmgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI" typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath" targetNamespace="http://www.activiti.org/test">
  <collaboration id="Collaboration">
    <participant id="pool1" name="Pool" processRef="process_pool1"></participant>
    <participant id="pool1" name="Pool" processRef="process_pool1"></participant>
  </collaboration>
  <process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane1">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask1</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask1" name="User Task"></userTask>
  </process>
  <process id="process_pool1" name="process_pool1">
    <laneSet id="laneSet_process_pool1">
      <lane id="lane2">
        <flowNodeRef>usertask2</flowNodeRef>
      </lane>
    </laneSet>
    <userTask id="usertask2" name="User Task"></userTask>
  </process>
  <bpmndi:BPMNDiagram id="BPMNDiagram_process1">
    <bpmndi:BPMNPlane bpmnElement="process1" id="BPMNPlane_process1">
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="pool1" id="BPMNShape_pool1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="500" x="150" y="110"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="lane1" id="BPMNShape_lane1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="480" x="170" y="110"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="pool1" id="BPMNShape_pool1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="500" x="150" y="350"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="lane1" id="BPMNShape_lane1" isHorizontal="true">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="150" width="480" x="170" y="110"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="usertask1" id="BPMNShape_usertask1">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="55" width="105" x="360" y="170"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
      <bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="usertask2" id="BPMNShape_usertask2">
        <omgdc:Bounds height="55" width="105" x="340" y="420"></omgdc:Bounds>
      </bpmndi:BPMNShape>
    </bpmndi:BPMNPlane>
  </bpmndi:BPMNDiagram>
</definitions>